navigating life as a thirty something

Main menu

Monthly Archives: March 2013

Post navigation

Today, Mother Nature has decided that it is Spring [in case you believed Punxsutawney Phil had a say in this scenario: you were wrong]. This has been confirmed by the fact that my apartment windows have been dive-bombed by pigeons twice this morning. What can I say? Even the flying rats are deliriously happy that the cold is peacing out.

This glorious day has me dreaming of warm weather activities on the horizon. Even though I haven’t lived in California for a long-ass time, the seasons are still something of a novelty to me.

A few things that I am anxiously anticipating with the arrival of Spring and Summer:

Dining outsideTaking a trip to Lake Tahoe for my cousin’s bachelorette partyFinding the perfect white purse*Strolling in Central Park; bemoaning the fact that you can’t swim in the boating pond (is that just me?)Planning summer beach tripsSipping margaritas at BlockheadsWearing maxi dresses, sun dresses, and leather sandalsAcquiring tan lines that somehow force their way upon my body (despite my rigorous application of SPF 70)Putting fresh flowers in vases in my apartmentPuppies!**Dreaming of tropical vacationsTaking a road trip to Delaware with some of the loveliest people I knowGazing at stars from Brooklyn rooftopsDrinking beers cause they are the only thing that beat the heatEating hotdogs at Yankee Stadium (or Shake Shack at Citi Field)Lamenting the humidity (Oh wait. I’m not actually looking forward to that.)Yellow, pink, bright greenLong hours of sunlightAvocadosLoving New York City again (it’s hard to do in the Winter!)Anticipating awesomeness

*I once had the perfect white purse. Sadly, it was defective and I had to send it back to Kate Spade. Unfortunately for me, LOTS of other people also thought it was the perfect purse and it was completely sold out. I think about that purse, and miss it, much more than I should.

**My mom is getting TWO PUPPIES! I CAN’T WAIT!!! I told her that she should name them Babs and Judy.

Her: I don’t like those names for dogs. I like DOG names. Me: Ok. Well… Maybe when you get them, I’ll just CALL them Babs and Judy. Her: If you do that, I’m not getting any dogs!

[Stay tuned for pictures of two dogs that I will NOT be calling Babs and Judy… even though I want to!]

Gil: It’ll be three years before I finish medical school. Even then there won’t be any diamond sunbursts or marble halls.

Anne: I don’t want diamond sunbursts or marble halls. I just want you.

I mean. Honestly!

I am quite certain that the Anne Shirley/Gilbert Blythe courtship (along with a handful of other things, Dirty Dancing being one of the gravest offenders) ruined me at a very young age for all love. Obviously the truest romance naturally occurs after you float down a river in a leaky canoe reciting The Lady of Shalott, a cute boy pulls your hair and nicknames you “Carrots”, you dance away an enchanting evening in a gorgeous baby blue dress with puffed sleeves, you meet kindred spirits, and eventually you and that cute boy marry.

Others seize this as their opportunity to pontificate on their perfect match, something along the lines of:

-You are over 5’8″ (sorry short girls! I’m 6’3″…)
-You are very interested in maintaining your fitness – I spend at least 5 days a week at the gym, so this is something that is very important to me. I expect my partner to take this seriously, too.
-You know the difference between you’re and your.
-You aren’t currently recovering from a long term relationship (been there, done that… take it from me, it doesn’t work).
-You don’t have a cat. I’m allergic!
-You’ve gotten this far. (But please, PLEASE make sure you’ve read my whole profile. I have been very specific about what I want/am into and if you aren’t aware of that up front, there’s no point in wasting my time.)

I have to hand it to these men. If you can just peruse hundreds of thousands of women, for free, from the comfort of your own home, you might as well be specific about what you want.

I opted for the less-is-more route.

You should message me if…

You are awesome. Those who are not awesome need not apply.

You should NOT message me if you are a scrub. I don’t want no scrub, a scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me.

Some hilarious resulting messages I’ve received:

You don’t want my number? -Scrub

Hey – I’m not hanging out the passenger side of my best friend’s ride, trying to holler at you. I’m doing the okcupid method, which I guess is a very small step above that?

Some NOT hilarious messages that I’ve received?

What’s a scrub?

Usually I want to write back one of the following responses:

1. Did you live through the 90s?
OR
2. Do you know how to use google?

I hold back the snark, though. Instead, I just send this link, with no additional commentary.

Anyway, this “you should message me if” section always reminds me of an article that I read recently, that said you are allowed to have three deal-breakers, and that’s it. THREE.

I’ve thought a lot about what my deal-breakers are. Of course, on the unabridged wish list are the obvious, occasionally superficial sorts of things (in no particular order): likes to cook (and does so regularly); wants 2.2 kids, a house in the city and a summer home, and a dog; appreciates the arts; has a nice body (but not overwhelmingly so… please don’t make me feel like I could out-eat you at the Coney Island hotdog eating competition… God. Women are impossible!); doesn’t smoke; thinks I’m hot; loves his family and my mom; has drive and ambition; is gainfully employed; et cetera.

I think that limiting yourself to ONLY three deal-breakers is a productive strategy. If you’re like me, given enough time, you could convince yourself that even Ryan Gosling is an unacceptable match.

Assuming that there is something that has drawn me to this hypothetical suitor in the first place [ie I’m attracted to them in some way], I present to you my three deal-breakers. [These are subject to change at any time, I guess…]:

1. Must be liberal. [I’ve thought really, REALLY long and hard about this. It is indeed actually my number one deal-breaker.]

2. Isn’t intimidated by a strong, independent woman. [Sorry, buddy.] Also, it would be helpful if this person, on occasion, thinks the sun rises and sets out of my ass. I promise to afford them the same admiration.

3. Makes me laugh.

See! I’m so easy to please! [However, now that you’ve made it past the initial selection criteria, if I can just direct your attention to the unabridged list…]

Ya’ll. You read my blog. By now you know there aren’t many things that I’m not willing to share. [And honestly, if we were having this conversation in real life, instead of over the interwebs, that list would grow even shorter.]

I would go so far as to say that I sometimes lack a filter.

What can I say? We all have our crosses to bear.

Two Saturdays ago, I went on a date with a gentleman from OkCupid. I was a little tentative to agree to a Saturday night date because:

1. Even though I’ve jumped into the online dating scene (mostly) whole-hog, I feel like I should be able to find something [ANYTHING] else to do on a Saturday night, with people that I actually know. Saturdays are sort of sacred, I like to believe.

2. I was still in the midst of training for my half-marathon, and Sundays were my long run days [not to mention the fact that this particular Saturday/Sunday happened to be the evening of the time change, so sleep was going to be a fleeting mistress no matter what.]

I met this Suitor at 9:00 [let’s be honest, I was running late. 9:15] on Saturday evening at an amazing shoe-box of a bar in the East Village. On my journey to the bar [wherein I was hit on by a Skateboarding-Iron-Worker-Employed-By-The-Freedom-Towers-Project], I promised myself that I would spend no more than two hours and two drinks with this man. I had a lot to get done on Sunday [and had already spent all day Saturday recovering from Friday night’s debauchery… we’ll leave that story in the “things I won’t be sharing on this blog” category].

Once we got past the first awkward 30 minutes [such is the initial OkCupid date], we started to have a really nice time. The conversation never faltered. We laughed. There was some good-hearted ribbing. Two drinks and two hours quickly arrived.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” my Suitor asked.

“Um…. Sure! Why not?” I answered. [Any dreams I had of conquering the next day’s long run were immediately dashed.]

We headed to another bar, where I enjoyed too many cocktails.

Confession: It’s really, REALLY hard for me to say “no” to free alcohol. [Can I get an “amen”?]

The events that next transpired are a bit hazy. They went something like this: I was having such a wonderful evening that I decided it was time for me to become Facebook friends with this gentleman I had known for all of 3 hours. The Facebook friend request/accept happened IN THE BAR. But, OH SHIT! I’ve already mentioned this guy on my blog, which is plastered ALL OVER my Facebook page, so now I have to TELL him about my blog. So I did.

In the moment, this all seemed like a normal, natural course of events.

The next morning, my head pounding with rage and my stomach triple-dog-daring me to even TRY to run, the preceding evening came back to me in a horrific flash.

I opened my laptop to seek out my new friend, attempt to do some sort of damage control. There was nary a trace of him. There wasn’t even a pending friend request. One of the following things must have happened:

1. When I got home at 2:30 [which was actually 3:30] the night before, I realized the folly of my ways and immediately unfriended him; or
2. This guy was truly a gentleman and knew that becoming Facebook friends on our first OkCupid date was a stupid idea and he did me the courtesy of unfriending me; or
3. I imagined the whole scenario.

There is a HUGE learning curve with online dating (and some of us are quicker than others *ahem*). Personally, I prefer to make my mistakes in the most grandiose way possible so that I am sure to learn from them. They are as follows:

1. When you set a drink and/or time limit for yourself before a date, you should probably stick to it. Sober-self is much wiser than drunk-self. [EVEN IF THE DRINKS ARE FREE AND SO, SO DELICIOUS!]

2. NEVER, under ANY circumstances become Facebook friends with someone you are on a first date with. [You guys. I know. I am SO DUMB. This is like, social-media/online-dating 101. You live and you learn.]

I agreed to go on a date with a guy from OkCupid this week. In planning, we exchanged the following texts:

Him: So, I’m not that familiar with the East Village happy hour scene. Do you have any suggestions?

Me: Sure! How about ThisBarWithAnAmazingHappyHour?

Him: Sounds great! I’ll see you there on Tuesday at 6:30!

Except.

It’s not great.

ThisBarWithAnAmazingHappyHour is INDEED a bar that has an amazing happy hour. So, obviously I won major cool points for knowing the hot spots.

However.

ThisBarWithAnAmazingHappyHour is ALSO TheBarOnTheGroundFloorOfMyApartmentBuilding.

People. DO NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE.

1. At the end of the night, you are forced to:
a. Lie about where you live because if he knows where you live, he is going to KILL YOU (always); and
b. Walk MANY BLOCKS out of your way to keep up the lie you’ve told. [Also, maybe in doing so, you might end up at the grocery store where you buy a bag of butter snaps pretzels and a jar of fake cheesy dip that you definitely DO NOT need to be eating.]

AND

2. Though it’s probably not going to work out with this Suitor (for no particular reason, really), you might now be subjected to seeing him on a regular basis because this bar’s happy hour is THAT amazing.

Learn from my severe lack of foresight. Do not sacrifice your favorite happy hour (that also happens to be ridiculously convenient) to a first OkCupid date. Save that stellar location suggestion for when you will actually be grateful that your bed is a short trek up six flights of stairs (if you know what I mean).

Do you know what I would LOVE to talk about on our first date? That time you lost your phone in a cab. How close you are to your mom. Awkward OkCupid dates you’ve been on. What you ate for breakfast. The kind of dog you’d like to adopt from that shelter in Williamsburg. Your favorite bar in Tribeca. The crazy debaucherous shit that happened when you went to Greece (for free!) in the Fall. Your favorite websites. How it really bothers you when people eat their Dunkin’ Donuts bacon-egg-and-cheese-on-a-croissant on the subway in the morning. Your perfect Sunday. How badass you think Louis CK is. Why you think Newt Gingrich is a prick.

Honestly, pretty much ALL topics are open for discussion.

Do you know what topic I could do without? What a heinous bitch your ex-girlfriend was.

I’ve been thinking about it, and I have NEVER been on a date with someone who didn’t somehow casually slip into the conversation what a crazy/needy/amazing/awful person their ex-girlfriend was.

What is the purpose of that? Are you trying to prove to me how desirable you are? Listen. Two things:

1. If I’ve decided to go on a date with you, I’ve already put you in the “desirable” category for some reason or another.

2. At XX years old, I’m assuming that you do, in fact, have an ex-something-or-other. You don’t have to drop it into the conversation to prove to me that, at some point, someone found you desirable enough to keep around for an extended period of time.

Please. I beg of you. I promise not to talk about my period [or whatever makes you feel uncomfortable] if you promise not to bring up your ex-girlfriend. [Thinly veiled stories about a woman-friend with whom you had a falling out are not fooling me either.] If we make it to the point of actually dating, and I am feeling particularly self-destructive one day, I promise you I will ask about her.